


Snapshots in Wallet Sizes

by Greensilver (Trelkez)



Category: Heroes - Fandom, Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-31
Updated: 2007-05-31
Packaged: 2017-10-03 01:12:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trelkez/pseuds/Greensilver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The photo hadn't been in there. Sandra must have planted it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapshots in Wallet Sizes

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Vonnie.

Noah flipped through his wallet, not even stopping to look at the cards his fingers skipped over; his ID was the fourth one down, always. Proper organization was, after all, the key to efficiency.

He handed the overly made-up woman at the check-in counter his ID, and gave her a tired - but hopefully, friendly - smile.

She smiled back, and slid something that was decidedly_ not _his ID across the counter. "Yours?"

A red-faced little girl stared up at him from the counter, her expression locked in a confused wariness that hadn't yet erupted into actual crying. He was pretty sure that all toddlers looked like that in studio portraits - captured at the very end of the calm before the storm, one shutter click ahead of an ear-splitting wail - but that didn't make the picture any less appropriate to his particular situation.

"Yes," he said, hoping she hadn't noticed his slight hesitation. "I'm sorry - I didn't realize that was in there."

The photo _hadn't _been in there. Sandra must have planted it.

Just before he'd left for the airport, she'd said to him: _You're not just her adoptive father, you're her _daddy_. Try it on for size. _Maybe she thought carrying a photo in his wallet would be the equivalent of giving _daddy _a test drive.

She always saw things in such impossibly simplified terms.

He didn't realize the woman at the counter was talking to him until she repeated herself a second time. "What's her name?"

"Um," he said, carefully picking up the picture by the edges and sliding it back into his wallet. "I'm - Claire. I'm sorry - her name is Claire."

Her smile turned slightly sympathetic, which, to him, looked remarkably similar to pity. "First-timer, huh?"

"Yes." That came out more fervent than he'd meant it to, but she just nodded in understanding. "Yes, she's my first."

He snapped the wallet shut and stuffed it into his carry-on, out of sight.

\---

"First time going to New York?"

He knew that the man in the center seat was talking to him; the elderly woman on the aisle had been asleep for half an hour, so there was no one else the question could possibly be directed to. Still, if he just kept reading his newspaper and pretended he hadn't heard, maybe the man would give up and leave him in peace.

"My wife and I went to New York for our honeymoon, a few years back," the man said, apparently not caring whether or not he actually had an audience. "I went to see the Yankees play the Brewers, Lianne went to see The Grateful Dead at Madison Square Garden. Much better than one of those resort honeymoons where all you do is sit on the beach all day. _That_, I could do at home."

Noah flipped from business to sports, and quickly kept moving on, just in case the man to his left got an eyeful of the baseball headlines.

The man gave a low, muffled laugh, which probably meant Noah's "not paying attention" cover was blown.

He finally gave in, and looked up. "What?"

The man in the center seat had_ law enforcement _written all over him. Noah had to force himself not to sit up a little straighter.

"Oh, nothing," the man said, waving a hand. "It's nothing."

He was probably going to regret this, but: "No, what?"

The man sounded vaguely apologetic, at best. "You have more tells than my daughter."

A variety of options immediately presented themselves. He could play dumb; he could pretend not to be offended; he could show a little aggravation, maybe even shake the man off his tail for the remainder of the flight.

Instead, what he said was, "How old?"

"Five. Well - four. Almost five. Her birthday is the day after I get home." The man reached into his pocket so quickly that it had to be a reflex, and pulled out his wallet. Before Noah could change his mind and give the aggravation tactic a try, he had a half-dozen pictures in his hands.

The girl in the top picture had long blond pigtails and bright, curious eyes, and he was suddenly seized by the certainty that Claire was going to look just like that, at five: not just pretty and smart, but _inquisitive_.

God, what a terrifying thought.

"That's Veronica," the man said, his voice almost embarrassingly full of love and pride. Those were probably emotions that most fathers - normal fathers, with normal wallets overflowing with pictures - felt on instinct, without having to be instructed to do so.

That was also a terrifying thought, albeit in a completely different way than the last one.

He flipped to the next photo. This one had obviously been taken at a younger age, and crowded into the frame was another bright-eyed blond girl, caught in the act of trying to steal Veronica's birthday hat. The next showed Veronica and the other girl grabbing fistfuls of Veronica's cake; the one after that showed a Veronica laden with baby fat clinging to a woman who could only be the previously mentioned Lianne; the next was Veronica taking an unsteady step, moments from falling down.

Every photo looked like Claire. Not the Claire waiting for him at home, the distrustful toddler who still cried through the night, waiting for her biological mother to show up - no, he saw Claire as he knew she _would _be, in just a few short years. She'd look just like these girls: bright, carefree, happy.

Oblivious.

That would be the key, after all, to keeping her happy: making sure she was completely oblivious to the bigger picture. Which wasn't so totally unlike Veronica, there; he doubted that behind the curious eyes and quizzical smile, she knew one iota more about the real world than any other five-year-old.

It was, he supposed, a dad's job to _keep_ it that way. It was_ his _job, because Claire was his daughter, whether he'd wanted her or not.

"She's beautiful," he said, handing the photos back, careful not to leave any fingerprints on them. "You're very lucky."

"Believe me, I know," the man said, somehow managing to make it sound matter-of-fact, rather than smug. "What about you? Got kids?"

Noah smiled a little. "Just one."

The man just watched him, clearly waiting for something.

Oh.

He pulled his carry-on out from under the seat ahead of him, dug through the front pockets, and fished out his wallet. He found the picture without hesitation, without having to stop and look; it was right where he'd left it, carelessly shoved in front of his ID, fourth one down.

The photo was slightly wrinkled; he smoothed it out over his knee before handing it over.

Next to Veronica's sunny smiles, Claire looked like a storm cloud.

"That's her," he said, a little surprised to hear a smile in his voice. "That's my Claire."


End file.
